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Looking round a school library, I saw something I can’t get out of my mind | Adrian Chiles

I was shocked to find a book for children whose parents are in prison. But I’m glad someone had the compassion to write it

I was at a primary school in the east Midlands last week. It was all but deserted, with most of the kids in makeshift classrooms nearby. Dodgy concrete, you see. This place was ahead of the game, having found the stuff earlier in the year and, thanks to brilliant work by the head and her staff, was ticking along nicely.

I handled a chunk of the dreaded Raac. It was light as a pumice stone and seemed somehow even less structurally sound than the Aero bar it’s supposed to resemble. At least the bubbles in an Aero are even; these were a ropey-looking hotch-potch.

Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster, writer and Guardian columnist

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